


Ridiculously Simple

by smutty_claus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: smutty_claus, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-09
Updated: 2010-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-13 14:21:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smutty_claus/pseuds/smutty_claus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the best love stories are the most fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ridiculously Simple

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seegrim](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=seegrim).



> Are you the author of this story and just got your own AO3 account? Email me at: smuttyclausmods@gmail.com and I will edit the author name to reflect your new account!

**To:**  
 **From:** Your Secret Santa

>   
> **Title:** Ridiculously Simple  
>  **Author:** teenage_hustler  
>  **Pairing:** Ron/Pansy  
>  **Summary:** Sometimes the best love stories are the most fun.  
>  **Rating:** R  
>  **Length:** about 14,300 words  
>  **Warnings:** none  
>  **Author's notes:** , this fic was a joy to write for you! I loved the first time prompt you gave me, and I loved the idea of a love story being light and fun and enjoyable, so hopefully that’s what I’ve managed to write here. Happy Smutmas to you! Thanks so much to S and C for their incredible beta work!

 

Merlin’s pants, Pansy thought, attempting to brush the copious amounts of black and ginger hair off her front, to no avail. Who would have thought that pet shopping would be so difficult?

Certainly not her. Pansy had never been one for owning animals. She liked them well enough. Cats in particular. Something about their being both unwaveringly aristocratic and inexhaustibly playful appealed to her. But even owning a cat had never really tempted her. She supposed that having to look after mentally-deficient people all day took most of the motherly care she had in her, and looking after the well-being of some tiny furball with about the same brain capacity as her regular patients would be more than she could handle.

It was mean of her, she knew, to think about her patients in terms of their brain capacity. Mean, and uncalled for in the grand scheme of things, particularly when each patient’s brain shouldn’t be measured so much in terms of capacity as in terms of deviance from the norm. Pansy’s normal attitude was to concentrate on what made her patients tick, and use that to the patient’s advantage.

Maggie, for instance, was clearly an animal-lover. This was why Pansy was now standing in the middle of Diagon Alley, trying not to think of how much the magical dry-cleaners might wish to charge to get this much fur off her robes.

She had thought the task to be relatively straight-forward. Step 1: Go into a pet store. Step 2: Find and purchase an animal suitable for Maggie. Step 3: Drop by the hospital to present the animal to the elderly woman. Step 4: Go home. Step 5: Give the apartment its daily clean. Step 6: Eventually go to bed, hoping that tonight will finally be the night where more than four hours of sleep is achieved. As it stood, Pansy had spent the afternoon irresolutely stuck on Steps 1 and 2. The frustrating thing was that she had come close to finishing Step 2 several times, but had pulled out at the last second, somehow instinctively knowing that Maggie would not like the cat/owl/rat/miniature piglet in question. And now, it seemed, she had run out of pet stores.

I need a coffee, she thought to herself. It was 5 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, so the chances were that her favourite Muggle café just beside the Leaky Cauldron would be closed. But the coffee was so good there that she decided it was worth a try. She turned around and headed for the tiny pub.

As she walked, she approached a shop that she had never had any reason to enter, but it was so almost insultingly happy and bright in its colouring that she was rarely able to pass it without at least slowing down to look in its window.

She didn’t really know much about the shop, except that it was owned by some of the Weasley clan. It was originally the two twin brothers, she believed, but since one of them had died she wasn’t sure who owned it now. Some of the relatives of her patients had recommended certain items in there, both for her patients’ use and her own (and she had never known whether she should be insulted by their suggestions or not), but somebody else had always asked to go there instead. The shop was evidently popular.

Since her body’s demand for coffee had gone from low to fairly moderate, Pansy would probably have just walked slowly past the shop today without stopping, but something in the window caught her eye. Right in the middle of the elaborate display was a large golden cage, and inside the cage were several pink and purple jumping balls of fur. At least that’s what they looked like, but upon closer scrutiny Pansy would see that each had two large eyes of a colour similar to their respective fur, a little cat-like nose and a tiny, tiny mouth, probably too small for anything bigger than a watermelon seed to fit in.

Her eyes landed on one creature in particular. It was sitting next to the water dish, looking up at her with wide, surprised eyes. Pansy looked right back at it, and suddenly its eyes softened. It sniffed at the cage floor, and then waddled carefully past its cage-mates to the window. It looked at Pansy again, then headbutted the cage. Pansy wouldn’t call herself the most emotional of individuals, but something about the little ball’s innocent actions was enough to make her heart completely melt. She knew instantly that that little ball was just the thing that Maggie needed. Without a second’s hesitation, Pansy marched right into the shop.

The inside was even more brightly-coloured than the outside, which she hadn’t believed to be possible. The walls were stacked floor-to-ceiling with shelves. Tables of banging, or smoking, or glittering, displays, were dotted around the shop floor. Merchandise flew past her head, crawled by her feet, disappeared in front of her and reappeared above her head. Every item in the place seemed to be trying to put on a show. Pansy dimly wondered how the owners managed to do stock-take every evening.

She turned back towards the window, and, looking at the cage, saw that the ball of fur had moved to the other side and was now sticking its little nose between the bars. Pansy held out two fingers to the ball, and it sniffed at them cautiously for a moment before rubbing its face against the side of her hand. Pansy’s heart melted all over again. She would happily have stayed like that, just her and the ball of fur, had a loud voice behind her not then asked “Can I help you at all?”

She recognised that voice. It had been seven years, but she knew it well. How could she forget the voice of somebody whose best friend she had been willing to sacrifice to the darkest wizard of all time? How could she forget the voice of anybody she had encountered that year? She still occasionally heard Granger’s voice scolding her whenever she misfiled something or acted coldly towards a patient, or didn’t do her job properly in some other way.

But it was not Granger’s voice she had heard just now.

“Weasley,” she said, turning towards him. “It’s been a while.”

Ron Weasley, for that was whose voice she had heard, seemed to freeze upon seeing her face. He clearly had not expected it to be somebody he knew, let alone her. Pansy noted that he didn’t look all that different from when she’d last seen him. He had always been long and lanky, and quite clumsy if she remembered rightly. He was still long, but maybe a touch broader across the shoulders. Whether he was still clumsy or not could probably be determined by watching him move. His hair had also been left to grow into a sort of shaggy mop, not unlike that of his still-best friend, presumably. Weasley’s, of course, was still its trademark brilliant red.

“Pansy Parkinson,” he said coolly to her, crossing his arms. “This is a surprise.”  
Pansy raised an eyebrow at his demeanour. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. She had been pretty horrible to him and his band of merry men during Hogwarts days, after all. “Yes, well,” she said, “be prepared to be further surprised, Weasley, because I’m also intending to buy something.”

“You’ve rocked me to my core,” Weasley answered, his expression not changing at all. Pansy was surprised to find that she had to bite down a smile. Who would have thought that Ron Weasley, of all people, possessed something akin to wit? “What is it you’re after? Something to tame that out-of-control hair?”

Pansy’s hand subconsciously travelled to the front of her immaculate bob. Not to blow her own self-styling trumpet, but her hair was about as out-of-control as Weasley was short. She was about to question his accusation when she saw the wry smile playing at his face. He was joking? Pansy wasn’t quite sure how to react to that. She knew that Weasley had been quite the joker at Hogwarts, but never to her. Their relationship had hardly been friendly, after all. If he had been a friend, she would have responded in her conventionally acidic way, but if she did that here she risked potentially not being served, or, worse, him using one of the multitude of strange magical devices in this shop on her.

Fortunately, he saved her the trouble of thinking up a suitable reply. “I saw you were looking at the Pygmy Puffs.”

Pygmy Puff. So that’s what they’re called. “Yes,” she said. “I would like to buy that one.” She looked back at the cage. The little pink furball from before had not changed position, and was now looking at Pansy again with wide eyes.

“I see,” Weasley answered. He knelt beside the cage, inserting a finger between the bars, stroked the top of the Pygmy Puff’s head. The little creature closed its eyes in content.

“You’ve chosen well,” he said. “This one’s lovely.” He removed his finger, opened the little door of the cage, inserted a hand and, with practiced precision, pulled the Puff out. He held it out to Pansy, who took it and gasped in surprise when the Puff jumped up her arm and onto her shoulder.

“They make great pets,” Weasley informed her as he closed the door. “They’re very affectionate and extremely low-maintenance. Just don’t expect this little bloke to bring you your paper in the morning.”

“I’ll tell her to keep that in mind,” Pansy said absent-mindedly. He was walking towards the other side of the store, and in an effort to follow him she had to avoid a multitude of strange obstacles she wanted to assume weren’t attempting to kill her, but she couldn’t be too sure.

“’Her’?” Weasley repeated. He let himself through the gate beside the front counter and faced her, the counter between them. “He isn’t for you then?”

“No,” Pansy answered. “He’s for a friend of mine. Somebody who likes animals.”

“I see.” Weasley held out his hand. Pansy looked at it in confusion for a moment, then let out an “Oh!” and sheepishly took the Puff off her shoulder. Weasley set the Puff on his own shoulder and ducked under the counter. She heard vague rustling sounds.

“So,” she said, “What have you been up to since Hogwarts?”

There was no answer for a moment. Then he stood up, his nose dusty and a little golden cage in his hand. He set it on the counter and opened the door. The Puff obediently hopped off Weasleys’ shoulder.

“That’s a courteous thing to ask,” Weasley remarked. He nudged the Puff towards the cage. “I’d almost believe that you’re interested in my answer.”

“I am interested,” Pansy insisted. “Believe me; I’m perfectly comfortable with tense, awkward silences. I wouldn’t have asked you if I wasn’t curious.”

“Hmm.” The Puff hopped into the cage, and Weasley quickly swung the little door shut. “Well, I’ve pretty much been here for the past… how long has it been?”

“Seven years,” Pansy answered automatically. She could have given him months and days as well, but that, she supposed, would have been creepy. People were, after all, pretty creeped out with her almost obsessive attention to detail. The only people who didn’t seem creeped out by it were her patients.

 

“Yeah. Seven years.” Weasley offered her a smile. “I pretty much make stuff and sell it to people. My brother does most of the inventing bit, but sometimes he bounces ideas off me.”

“Wow,” Pansy said, somewhat amazed. “That hardly seems like the glamorous work life a member of the Golden Trio should have had presented to them on a silver platter.”

“Heh,” Ron chuckled, evidently not at all offended by the ‘Golden Trio’ jibe. “Probably not. But I get to work with my brother, and we sell stuff that makes people laugh. I really can’t complain. It’s ten galleons for the Pygmy Puff.”

Pansy opened her mouth to rebut, but no argument came to her. She personally revelled in having a job that required the high qualifications she’d spent three years studying diligently for. She couldn’t imagine being satisfied doing shop work. It wasn’t that she considered it beneath her. It was more that she needed to keep her mind occupied, and she doubted that looking after a shop really did that. Although, a shop as insane as this one probably would be very mind-occupying.

But she supposed that there were definitely worse things than selling ‘stuff that makes people laugh’, as he put it.

“What about you?” Weasley asked.

She shook herself. “Sorry?”

“What have you done since Hogwarts?”

“Er…” She’d done quite a few things since Hogwarts, truth be told. But she was fairly sure that he didn’t want to hear the entirety of her story. “I’m a Healer now,” she instead said. “I specialise in helping people with irreparable magical ailments. It was ten galleons, did you say?”

“Yeah.” Pansy felt Weasleys’ eyes on her as she rummaged in her purse. “So you look after a bunch of people that have no chance of being cured?”

“That’s the gist of it,” Pansy replied, frowning. What he said was technically true, but few were often so blunt about it.

“Hmm.” Weasley took her money and shoved it in the cash register. “Well, I suppose then at least nobody can call you out for not making much progress on the job, can they?”

“Ha!” Pansy cried, then abruptly covered her mouth. She hadn’t meant to laugh. His joke hadn’t been that funny. And yet it was extremely funny, in an ironic kind of way. Because he was right. Pansy made very little actual progress in her job. She made so little, in fact, that it often got her down. It was the needle in her otherwise perfect profession, but the needle was so sharp and painful that at times she wondered why she bothered.

Then she would remember why she had decided to become a Healer in the first place.

After a moment’s awkward silence, during which Pansy stared at Weasley as though he was a large car and she a startled deer, before he roughly cleared his throat and pushed the puff-filled cage towards her.

“I’m sure your friend will love him,” he said.

Pansy blinked, then uncovered her mouth to take the cage. “Thanks,” she said quietly. To avoid further awkwardness she turned and left the store as quickly as she could. She had a horrible feeling she’d now be spending the entire evening thinking about whether or not she should quit her job.

~*~

She didn’t quit her job. She never did. And to be quite honest it would be insane of her to quit, as she honestly did love what she did for a living, and she was very good at it. She couldn’t help but feel guilty, though, about how easy she seemed to have it sometimes. Surely her time would be better spent at testing labs and in serious lectures than in warm, comfortable rooms bearing cuddly toys and an encouraging smile?

Her guilt was eased once a week, however, when she was put on General Healer duty. St Mungo’s, as a Wizarding hospital, did not employ Healers for purposes of General Healing. Instead, every Healer in the hospital was a specialist in some field of another, and had to perform General Healer duties once or twice a week, depending on how far up they are in the employment food chain of their specialist field. Pansy, as one of the high-ups (a remarkable position to be in after only three years of employment), only had General Healer duty (or GH duty, as they called it), once a week. She did her GH duty on Mondays, so as to get it out of the way and spend the rest of the week focusing on her permanent patients.

“All right, Mr Greene,” she said, giving the middle-aged wizard a bottle of blue potion. “Take a teaspoon of that twice a day after meals until the bottle runs out, and you should be fine. Might I suggest from now on that you save the arguments with your wife for times when she doesn’t have her wand on her?”

Mr Greene tried to respond, but all that came out was a high-pitched squawk. He ruffled the yellow feathers that had sprouted on the top of his head in annoyance as he stalked out the door.

Pansy shook her head. Some of the stuff she saw during GH duty made her head spin.

One of the secretaries, a handsome but extremely nervous young man called Jack, stuck his head in the window. He had only just come on duty, and on seeing Pansy in the room he blushed bright crimson.

“Send the next patient in, please, Jack,” she said, offering him a warm smile.

“Y-y-yes, Healer Parkinson,” Jack stuttered, hurriedly pulling himself away from the window. A moment or two passed, then the door was flung open. She looked up and saw none other than Ron Weasley standing at the door, his face and arms raw and shining with what looked to be quite serious burns.

“Oh, Merlin,” Pansy gasped. Forgetting the conclusion of their previous encounter entirely for a moment, she indicated that he should sit on the bed and pulled her wand out of her robe. “What the hell happened to you, Weasley?”

He didn’t respond for a moment. Perhaps he’s in shock, Pansy thought. She’d seen that happen before, in patients who had somehow been involved in a fire.

But then he cleared his throat and said “Er, well … I had a little accident.”

Pansy stared at him, completely at a loss for words. He stared back at her, his gaze unmoving, until suddenly both of them burst out laughing. Pansy turned away from him, clutching her stomach and sinking to the floor in a most unprofessional, and therefore most atypical for her, manner. Her body shook with laughter for several moments before she was able to straighten herself. She stood up and, still chuckling, turned to him again. He was grinning at her.

“If I’d known you were going to react like that, I’d have memorised more material,” he said.

Pansy dabbed carefully at her mascara’d eyes with the tips of her fingers, trying to force the joke out of her head, straighten her robes and act like the trained Healer that she was, but she could feel her body shaking as she pointed her wand at his arm. “I’m afraid I’m going to need a bit more detail,” she said, her voice cracking slightly at the last word.

He shrugged lightly. “It’s not a big deal. I was mixing a potion that we use for our fireworks. I added a little too much – well, half a bottle too much – Mungbean juice into the mix, and the mixture exploded a bit prematurely. George sent me here straight away.”

“I don’t blame him,” Pansy said, managing to find her serious side, finally. “Some of these are second-degree. And they’re pretty messy too. There are traces of potion all over them.”

“I guess,” Weasley said, seemingly uncaring about his predicament. “It’s just another day at the office, really.”

“It’s all right for some, isn’t it?” Pansy asked, rolling her eyes. She walked across to the room’s potion cabinet and started looking through the mind-boggling array of bottles lined up there. “Did you say that it was too much Mungbean juice that you added?”

“Yeah,” Ron affirmed. “There was a fair amount of mahou-zethanol in there as well, if that helps? You know what mahou-zethanol is, right? It’s like a—”

“Like a bottled up version of magical energy that reacts explosively to other highly magical substances, including humans.” Pansy cut him off.

She looked over at him, and the expression of surprise on his face made her smile. “We have entire lectures devoted to mahou-zethanol in Healer training,” she explained. “You wouldn’t believe the sort of trouble it causes when amateurs tamper with it.” She resumed her cupboard search. “Anyway, as I was saying, here you are with some pitiful second-degree burns, while the rest of us have to deal with real problems, like the occasional hangnail or bad hair day.” She selected a mixture of her own creation – one that she had used before on a permanent patient of hers with permanent mahou-zethanol-related scarring – and brought it and her bucket of cotton balls over to where Ron sat.

“Hey, I had a hangnail that hurt like the dickens for at least half an hour, once,” he responded. Pansy chuckled and dabbed cautiously at his arm with a cotton ball soaked with her mixture. To her great joy all visible traces of potion seemed to disappear almost instantly. That didn’t necessarily mean they had actually vanished, however. She ran her wand over the area she had used the mixture on, and the burn cleared up, not even leaving a scar. She grinned in triumph. She seemed to have her cure. Normally finding cures for unusual magical burns like these took anywhere from ten minutes to two hours. Perhaps the time was finally ripe for her to proclaim “once you’ve seen one mahou-zethanol-related problem, you’ve seen them all.”

“Wow,” Weasley said, observing her progress. “That’s nice work. You’ve got quite a gift there, Parkinson.”

“Call me Pansy,” she said, without thinking. She pulled a chair over and sat down, facing directly opposite him.

“Well, only if you call me Ron. ‘Weasley’ isn’t the greatest of last names, after all.”

“Oh, I don’t know, _Ron_ ,” Pansy answered, unwrapping a clean white cloth, “’Weasley’ is pretty unique, after all.” She pulled out a pair of scissors and grinned when he recoiled. “Relax. I need to cut your shirt off.”

“What?” Ron asked, looking down at his ten-year-old, bright orange, emblem-emblazoned item of clothing. “Why?”

“Because when I see somebody wearing something that openly acknowledges their appreciation of the Cannons, I get really annoyed,” Pansy answered, rolling her eyes. “Obviously because the burns could have gone further than what I can see right now, and I don’t want to irritate the ones you have by pulling the shirt over your head. I’ll repair it afterwards, of course.”

“Oh,” Ron said. “All right.”

As she got set to cut he added “The Cannons rule, by the way.”

“Oh, yeah, they absolutely rule the very bottom of the tally board. They’ve been down there for, what? 150 years now?” She cut carefully along the top of one sleeve, being careful not to snick his neck as she finished.

“They’re just having a bad spell,” Ron defended.

“I don’t think even the worst of ‘bad spells’ take that long to recover from.” She cut along the other sleeve, and then knelt down to cut along the side seams.

“Well, who do you support then?” Ron asked, trying to raise his arm.

“Relax. I’ll cut around you,” Pansy ordered him. She cut up his side and along the lower half of his sleeve. “I’m a Harpies fan.”

“Harpies? Why?” Ron asked. “They’re all women.”

“That’s the beauty of them,” Pansy said, switching to the other side. “Women aren’t as competitive with each other as men are, so there are no competitions within the team, and they make a strong, solid unit. Haven’t you noticed that they are always constantly within the top five places on the tally board? No other team can boast that sort of record.”

“Hmm.” Pansy was expecting him to make some kind of angry rebuttal, but he actually seemed to be taking what she’d said into consideration. Perhaps he was more mature than she thought?

“There’s no good-looking blokes in the Harpies though,” he finally said as Pansy finished her last cut.

“Yes, well, looks don’t matter to me,” she said, slowly pulling the two pieces of shirt away from his upper body.

The damage, thankfully, hadn’t gone too much further than his forearms and face. There was a little on his neck, and she was probably going to have to swab his ears, but other than that he seemed to be fine. His hair hadn’t been harmed at all, or his chest, or shoulders.

They were a nice chest and shoulders too, she had to admit. She doubted Ron Weasley worked out very much, but she suspected that the sort of heavy lifting and running around his job would entail had probably contributed significantly to his physique. She’d seen better-proportioned men throughout her professional career, but Ron Weasley was definitely not bad. And the splattering of freckles along his shoulders didn’t hurt matters either.

“’Looks don’t matter to you’, huh?” he asked.

Pansy shook herself. “What?”

Ron smirked. “You were staring at my assets.”

“Oh shut up.” Pansy picked up the bottle and the white cloth. She turned away from him to find a bowl. The best way to do this, it seemed, would be to soak the cloth in the mixture then dab him with it, then run her wand over him, then repeat until all of the burns were gone. Time-consuming, but more effective than doing a blanket-wipe. Blanket wipes tended to miss areas; something that Pansy’s precise nature would not allow. She pulled out the first bowl she found and tipped the contents of the bottle into it. She dropped the towel into the bowl and came back over to him.

“It’s all right if you think I’m good-looking, you know,” he said, grinning.

“Please,” Pansy said, rolling her eyes. “That’d be like falling in love with the tallest carrot in the world.”

“I think carrots are dead sexy,” Ron said. Pansy snorted. “Anyway, I don’t have orange skin and green hair.”

“Pity,” Pansy replied, “since that would probably improve your appearance dramatically. Now, hold still.”

“I hope this stuff isn’t going to sting—ohhh.” His eyes fluttered closed when she placed the wet cloth on his arm. “I think that’s quite honestly the best feeling I’ve ever had in my whole life.”

Pansy snorted. “Someone’s clearly still a virgin.”

“I don’t think that sort of talk is appropriate, do you?” Ron replied, opening one eye.

“Well, we’ve agreed to first-name terms and have openly discussed Quidditch,” Pansy argued, moving the cloth further up his arm. “I’d say that passing that milestone means we could openly discuss just about anything.”

“Really?” Ron opened his other eye. “All right then. When was the last time you had sex, Pansy?”

Pansy’s arm stilled. She frowned, and then carefully resumed the task at hand without looking at him. “You’ve made your point,” she said instead.

It took her the better part of an hour to heal his burns. Nobody could ever accuse Pansy Parkinson of not being thorough. When she was done Ron looked as good as new. Pansy looked him up and down, her smile of satisfaction prominent.

“Like what you see?” Ron asked, smirking.

“I do,” Pansy answered, seemingly taking the bait. “It’s a fine job, I must say.”

Ron appeared triumphant.

“It’s a pity,” Pansy continued, “that I’m not trained to do anything for that face of yours.”

“Ow,” Ron said, pressing a fist against his chest. “My pride.”

“I can only hope that one day you’ll recover from the mortal sting.” She turned away to clean the bowl, unable to stop smiling. She’d had more fun with Ron as a patient than she’d had with any other patient in the past three years. Where he’d gotten his off-the-cuff humour from, she had no idea. Perhaps spending time with Granger had sharpened his instincts? Either way, she couldn’t help but think that the two of them had hit it off. She wondered how possible it could be for them to become friends.

“Can I tell you something?” came Ron’s voice from behind her.

“I suppose,” she answered.

“You have a nice smile.”

Pansy raised her eyebrows. THAT was unexpected. “Er, thanks.”

Ron nodded. “You really do. It gets rid of the pug dog-like bits of your face.”

Pansy pressed her face into her palm in exasperation. “You sure are a charmer, you know? Have you used that line on other girls? ‘Hey, you look like a dog most of the time, except when you smile, when you look slightly less like a dog’.”

Ron raised his open palms in surrender. “Hey, sorry. Kill me for trying to give you a compliment.”

“I won’t bother,” Pansy said. “Your job seems hell-bent enough on killing you as it is.” She pointed her wand at his shirt. It rose into the air and neatly stitched itself up, then flew over to Ron’s side. He pulled it on, only to look down and see that the words “I ♥ Holyhead Harpies” were now scrawled across the front.

“Hey!”

“I think it suits you.” Pansy grinned as she wiped her hands.

“Hmph.” Ron pointed his wand at his shirt, changing the writing back. “So, why did you become a Healer?” he asked.

Pansy’s grin lessened to a smile. “To help people who have little accidents, of course.”

Ron smiled back. “I see.” He picked up his bag and slung it loosely over his shoulder.

“I’ll see you around, Pansy. Thanks again.”

“No problem.” She waved at him as he left, then turned to the window. “Jack? Who’s next?”

~*~

Pansy was seriously hating her assistant at that moment. How typical, she thought. It was unbelievable, really, how she had chosen that moment eight and a half months ago to get busy with her young husband and get consequently knocked up, without taking a moment to divine that the week she started her maternity leave would be the exact week that the department would run out of armadillo bile for the Sleeping Draught, and scarab beetle shells for their most frequently-used pain suppressants, so now Pansy had to go instead. Several wasted hours of haggling with shop attendants in Diagon Alley had given her a headache of mammoth proportions, and now that she was done all she could concentrate on was the thought of being able to murder a latte from her favourite Muggle coffee shop before attending to the weekly change of Sid’s bandages. A lovely man, Sid, but so unable to control his magic that he was a hazard to himself. Literally.

As Pansy walked up the street, the ever-present facade of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes loomed closer. As she approached, her feet slowed down without her noticing, until she came to a dead stop right outside the store. The window display had changed, she noticed, and was now promoting a 25% discount on all joke confectionary. Cartons of fudges, baskets of lollipops, boxes of biscuits and bars of chocolate were stacked on top of each other and lay scattered along the floor, leaving barely enough room to be able to see the rest of the shop within.

Her thoughts turned towards Ron Weasley. It had been a little over a week since he had come to the hospital, and since then he had admittedly flitted in and out of her head from time to time, normally after something happened to make her laugh or smile. Ron, it seemed, was a person of endless joy and merriment. She supposed a person had to be like that to work in a shop like Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, but considering the heartache he had had to go through … losing a brother, at so young an age … Pansy knew to an extent what that felt like. But while her experiences left her feeling exhausted, upset and deflated whenever she allowed herself to think about them, Ron had seemed to, after the necessary grieving period, take it in stride. She had only seen him twice, but during both of those times he gave off an aura of happiness that seemed to rub off on her. She couldn’t help but envy a person who could evoke such positive emotions in others.

Suddenly, as though he had been able to hear her thoughts (which he might indeed have been able to do, with the sort of magical paraphernalia he sold in his store), Ron appeared through the tiny crack between the stacks of boxes. He seemed to be looking somewhere to his right, but before long he turned towards her, and his eyes widened upon seeing her.

Both stared at each other for a moment, surprised to see the other there; something Pansy felt was a touch ridiculous in her case, since obviously he would be in the shop somewhere. The thought of her own ridiculousness made her relax. She dropped her shoulders and offered Ron a smile and a tiny wave.

Ron’s enthusiastic wave of reply was enough to make her chuckle. He seemed to notice her laughing, as the next moment he was beckoning her with his finger. Pansy shrugged, forgetting her migraine or her need for coffee, and entered the shop.

“I was kind of expecting you to frown and walk off as soon as I invited you in,” Ron admitted to her by way of greeting.

“Yes, well,” she answered, watching as he turned towards a somewhat precariously-stacked display of custard creams, “I suppose your stunning wit and unflappable charisma enticed me to heed your call.”

Ron snorted loudly, his elbow knocking a box about halfway up the stack. Several seconds later Ron was blinking in confusion, and probable annoyance, at the few-dozen boxes of biscuits now scattered haphazardly on the floor. He kicked a box that had had the misfortune to land near his foot, and uttered a word a touch too colourful, Pansy thought, for the child-oriented environment of the stop. Luckily, if the sign on the front door was anything to go by, the shop was currently closed for lunch.

“Your grace is pretty enticing too,” Pansy said.

Ron pursed his lips in a strikingly feminine way. “I … you … shut up.” He turned away from her and started picking boxes off the floor. He wasn’t doing a very good job of it, Pansy noticed. In an effort to grab as many boxes as humanely possible, they all kept falling out of his hands, landing on top of each other and annoying him further. Pansy took pity on him and started to help.

After several moments Ron seemed to calm down, and start working in a more practical way. It was only then that he noticed her assisting him.

“Trying to apply for a job here, are you?” he asked.

“Depends,” Pansy answered, carefully lifting a box to a spot just above her head. “Would you hire me?”

Ron considered the stack of boxes. “Well, you’ve stacked about thirteen boxes in under a minute…”

Pansy grinned. She was fast – she knew that for sure.

“… and not one of them correctly.”

Her grin disappeared instantly, and her replacement scowl seemed to work tremendously well to improve his mood. He practically danced his way through the final two boxes before finishing with a flourish. The only thing the routine was missing was a bow.

“I’d tell you off for being a prick,” Pansy said, skirting aside to let him fix what she had apparently messed up, “but I think I was enough of a prick in Hogwarts to make us just about even.”

“Mmm.” Ron’s tongue was now nestled between his teeth, concentrating on shifting the boxes a few fractions of an inch forward or to the right. Pansy could see no difference between her original positioning and his adjustments. She supposed it must take a trained eye to see what she had done wrong. Either that, or he was being a colossal knobhead for the sake of being a colossal knobhead.

“So,” Ron said, after a few moments of seemingly useless concentration, “why did you stop being a prick, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Pansy sighed. “You know, most people would have said something along the lines of ‘oh no, you weren’t a prick’, or ‘maybe “prick” is too strong a word’, or something similar.”

“They would,” Ron agreed, “but I’m a firm believer in honesty. Particularly when it’s amusing to the speaker.”

Pansy shook her head. It was like reasoning with an obnoxious six-year-old.

“Seriously, though. Why aren’t you a prick anymore?”

Apparently he had an obnoxious six-year-old’s ability to pester as well.

“Well,” Pansy answered. “When I saw my first real-live prick, I decided that I didn’t want to be associated with something so small ever again.”

Ron’s responding shout of laughter was enough to make Pansy jump. It was a good thing that she had moved away from the custard cream tower.

“I really hope that the prick in question was Malfoy’s,” Ron said.

“A lady never tells.” Pansy checked her watch. “I’m supposed to be back at work by now.”

“I see,” he said. “So are we going to make meeting each other a habit, do you think?”

“Do you honestly think I have nothing better to do?” she asked, raising a sceptical eyebrow.

“There is nothing better than stacking boxes and insulting me, surely?”

Pansy sighed. She supposed that for somebody as happy-go-lucky as him, there was no more productive a use for his time than to stack boxes and be insulted by the likes of her. As far as she was concerned, she had more important things to contend with, and as fun as spending time with him was, she probably shouldn’t make a habit out of it.

“I’ll see you … when I see you,” she told him vaguely.

“Right,” Ron said, nodding. “So, tomorrow, then?”

Another sigh. “Goodbye, Ron.”

The next day, she went back. And nobody was more surprised about her going back than her. Ron, to her annoyance, was not surprised at all. In fact, it was almost as though he’d been waiting for her.

“How did you know I’d come?” she asked him.

He shrugged. “I don’t have a sixth sense, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said, seeming revolted by the very thought of it. “But we obviously get along. And when people get along, they make an effort to see each other. So I figured you’d make an effort to see me. It’s simple, really.”

Pansy didn’t reply. There didn’t seem to be much need. He was, after all, perfectly correct.

The next day, she came baring the gift of two lattes from her favourite coffee shop. Ron took a sip of his, frowned, and asked her why she didn’t bring him a mocha instead. Pansy told him that if he was a good boy and drank his drink anyway, she’d buy him a lollipop.

~*~

“That’ll be six-fifty.”

“Thank you.” Pansy offered the cute male barrista a smile as she handed over the Muggle money. He was one of the several workers in the café who now almost certainly recognised her, her having been there at around the same time every day for the past three weeks.

Pansy exited the shop, careful not to spill the two coffees, and headed toward the Leaky Cauldron. It amazed her how quickly she had settled into this new routine. Although, she supposed it wasn’t really that different from her old routine. Now, instead of her spending a miserable lunch hour alone in the St Mungo’s cafeteria, reorganising the salt-shakers and thinking about her patients despite her co-workers insisting that lunchtime was a time best spent not thinking about patients, she now spent the hour visiting Ron in Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, doing such important activities as watching him stack boxes or rearrange displays, asking him where on Merlin’s great earth did his brother get the inspiration to create potions that made people’s farts visible, and did they actually sell (they did, most commonly to pre-teenage boys about to attend fancy dinner parties), and begging him to please get a haircut because she was worried that his hair might just become long enough to develop a mind of its own.

It was funny how what had once been by far the worst hour of her day had quickly turned into the hour that she looked forward to more than any other time. The hour was an escape for her; a chance for her to remind herself that, despite the seriousness and the apparent fruitlessness of her job, there was still at least some time in the day available for not taking oneself seriously. Spending time with him got her out of her head, and for that she couldn’t help but feel secretly indebted to him.

She walked into the shop and, after taking a brief moment to disentangle herself from the jumping spider’s web that seemed to have taken a liking to her over the past few days, saw Ron at the cash register talking to someone. A few steps closer and Pansy recognised the unbelievably bushy head of Hermione Granger.

Pansy felt a sudden sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She recognised the feeling instantly, having spent seven years as part of a social group in school where everybody seemed to have more money and privilege than she did – it was jealousy. What in Merlin’s name? Pansy thought to herself. What could I possibly be jealous of? I’d hardly call Granger’s hair an object of extreme envy, unless you were determined to bring the 70’s kicking and screaming into modern fashion with an afro. If that were the case, then having Granger’s hair would be most advantageous. But I’m quite comfortable, and more than a little relieved at the fact that the 70’s have ended …

“Pansy!” Ron’s grinning face and madly waving hand shook Pansy out of her train of thought. She smiled back and approached the counter, passing him his drink.

“It’s a mocha, right?” Ron asked, bringing the cup to his mouth.

“No. I thought that you may like a change, so I went for peppermint tea.”

“Gahh!” Ron put the cup down as though it had suddenly scalded him. “Peppermint?!” he gasped, his breath shakier than a naked human in the middle of the Antarctic. “Why would you do that to me?”

“I’m only joking,” Pansy said, surprised and not a little amused by his reaction. “I didn’t realise peppermint would cause you such trauma.”

“It would cause you trauma too if you’d had George spit peppermint gum into your hair when you were three years old. Whenever I smell peppermint now, I think back to Mum pulling at my hair trying to get the gum out, and George laughing behind her back.” Ron picked up the cup again, taking a cautious sip.

“Christmas time must be hell and back for you,” Pansy said, rolling her eyes.

Hermione, who had been watching the entire exchange, chose this moment to speak up. “I see that Ron was right: You have changed a lot since Hogwarts days, haven’t you, Parkinson?”

“You might as well call me ‘Pansy’ now,” Pansy answered, smiling at her. “And I wouldn’t say I’ve changed that much. I’ve still got my pug face after all, haven’t I, Ron?”

“What?” Hermione glanced over at Ron, who was now looking down at his coffee cup, a decidedly reddish hue adorning his freckled cheeks. “Did you say that, er, Pansy, here, has a pug face?”

“Well,” Ron answered quietly, “not exactly. I was trying to say something nice about her…”

“You utter moron!” Hermione hit Ron on the shoulder. “You can’t just say things like that! Were you taught no manners as a child?”

Pansy watched Hermione continue to berate Ron, a strange feeling of unease falling over her. The way she was scolding him, it appeared as though Hermione was Ron’s wife. Was that true? Were they married? But Ron didn’t wear a wedding ring, and had never mentioned her in conversation as being ‘his wife’. And a wedding between two of the golden trio would surely have been famous enough to appear in the Daily Prophet, which Pansy had read diligently every morning at breakfast time since she was thirteen. But maybe they had eloped, or gotten married in secret, or something…

It then occurred to Pansy that this really shouldn’t be bothering her.

“Oh Lordy,” Hermione was now saying. “Is that really the time? I have to go.” She leaned forward to kiss Ron on the cheek before smiling over at Pansy. “It was nice to see you again, after so long. Hopefully we’ll meet again.”

“Thanks,” Pansy said distractedly, watching Hermione quickly exit the shop.

“So,” Ron said cheerfully, the mocha having clearly served as a useful barrier against Hermione’s scolding. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Pansy took a hesitant step backward. “Why?”

“Because I thought that maybe, today, instead of having you stand around like a waste of space as usual, I would teach you how to stack properly.”

Pansy blinked. “Okay,” she said slowly, “rude waste-of-space comment aside, what makes you think that I would want to know how to stack ‘properly’? I already am pretty adept at stacking in a way that I consider ‘proper’. Surely that’s enough?”

“Well, yes, that probably is enough for your purposes,” Ron acquiesced. “But come on. Humour me a bit. Unless you’re worried that you won’t be able to do it, or something?”

Pansy sniffed. “I’m sure that if you’re able to do it, I ought to be a natural.”

“That’s the spirit,” Ron said, either not hearing Pansy’s insult or ignoring it. “Come over here and tell me how you’d stack these boxes of Every Flavour Beans.”

“Why is your shop stocking Every Flavour Beans?” Pansy asked, following Ron to the beginnings of a display of the colourful little boxes in the centre of the store.

“They’re a bit different to Bertie Bott’s variety,” he answered her, pulling a half-empty cardboard box closer to the stack. “So, this stack is going to be like a pyramid—”

“How are they different to the normal ones?” Pansy interrupted him. “You’re not going to get into trouble for false advertising or plagiarism, are you?”

Ron frowned at her. “Believe it or not, this isn’t the first product we’ve ever tried to sell,” he said, now sporting a look of aristocracy that would have been admired by even the most Slytherin-ly of Slytherins. “We’ve got a bit of prior knowledge in patenting and conversing with our competitors. Bertie Bott was actually really keen to see these on the market. He’s a bit of a practical joker himself, if that wasn’t obvious from his own product.”

“I see.” Pansy picked up a box, running her fingers along the golden lettering depicting the product’s name: Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes’ Every Fauna Jellies. “’Every Fauna’…?”

“They turn you into animals,” Ron explained, taking the box from her. “Not for too long, but you eat one and you morph into, you know, a cat or a dog or a pig or a Niffler or a sea snail or an ant.”

“An ant?” Pansy asked, horrified by the very thought. “So, how do you make sure nobody steps on you?”

Ron grinned at her. “This is why our products all come with appropriate safety warnings. Now, as I was saying, we want a pyramid-type shape here, but we want the boxes to be sort of diagonal, so you get a nice rippling effect. Do you get what I’m saying?”

Pansy wasn’t quite over the idea of being crushed ‘neath the mighty feet of a playmate whilst eating jelly beans. She was going to have to be very careful not to accept any sort of sweet from Ron or his brother, ever. When Ron addressed her, she didn’t hear him.

“Pansy?” Ron asked, eyeing her curiously. Again, she didn’t respond. It wasn’t until Ron grabbed her by the shoulders that any reaction was forthcoming. Unfortunately for Ron, that reaction was a defensive hand to the face. Her palm made surprisingly brutal contact with the centre of his forehead, and Ron, too startled to try and remain upright, fell down instantly.

Pansy immediately snapped back to reality.

“Oh God,” she gasped, referring to the Muggle deity she had heard some of the patrons at her favourite coffee shop uttering the name of from time to time. She fell to her knees beside him.

“Ron? Are you all right? I’m so sorry. I was thinking about your weird sweets turning people into ants and their being stepped on by their friends. Kind of stupid, but you know, I lose myself in my thoughts sometimes … Ron?”

Ron was saying nothing. Pansy took a moment to scrutinise him further, and he was lying with his head to the side, his eyes closed and his mouth open slightly, as though unconscious.

Pansy, despite her medical training, panicked. He must have hit his head really badly when he fell. She grabbed him by his shoulders, and started yelling at him in a most unprofessional manner.

“Ron! Can you hear me! Wake up! Please wake up!”

Suddenly, Ron’s eyes opened, and before Pansy had a chance to either stupidly mumble “you’re awake”, or even more stupidly shriek “ahh! You’re a zombie!”, he had grabbed her by the collar and pulled her closer to him.

“That really hurt, you know,” he said, in a dangerous sort of whisper that she hadn’t heard from him before. Pansy opened her mouth to respond, and Ron took the opportunity to plant his own mouth against hers.

Pansy’s eyes widened in total surprise, and a small amount of lingering panic. Oh God, she again thought, he’s kissing me. Why is he kissing me? Why here, and now, of all times and places? What’s going on? Then the panicky thoughts started ebbing away, to be replaced with thoughts more along the lines of: huh, this is all right. Actually, this is more than all right. It’s kind of nice. Well, actually, it’s really nice. Really, very nice…

And so, she found herself kissing him back. And although, if she had allowed herself to think about it previously, she would have thought that kissing a friend like Ron would be quite awkward, this somehow did not feel awkward at all.

After several moments Pansy felt him start to pull away, and she brought her head back in response. They looked at each other, all red-lipped and tousled, for several seconds before Ron said, “That was nice.”

“Yeah,” Pansy agreed, unsure of what else to say. She was not sure why, exactly, that had happened. Ron seemed different to her now. Not better or worse, necessarily. But it was as though she’d been given access to a side of him that she had previously not seen.

“I have to say,” Ron continued, now offering Pansy a lop-sided grin, “it’s nice to know that there’s a sure-fire way to shut you up.”

All right, so maybe he’s not so different after all. Pansy huffed and, ignoring his offering hand, pulled herself off the ground.

“I thought,” she said, frowning at him, “that you and Granger…”

“Us?” Ron asked, eyeing her incredulously. “Really? Is that what you gleaned from the two minutes of seeing us interact today? I really do wonder what goes on in that head of yours sometimes.

“In answer to your stuttering question, however, we’ve not been together since about two weeks after the war ended, when we both realised that her having a total smart-arse for a boyfriend wasn’t going to be compatible with her bossy nature.”

“Huh,” Pansy uttered, still frowning at him. “That’s, well … huh.”

“What is it?” Ron asked, now looking worried. “Did I do something wrong?”

Pansy shook her head. “No, no. I just … I think I should go.”

“Why?”

Again, Pansy shook her head. “I’ll see you later.”

“Wait, Pansy—” Ron attempted to reach for her, but she was out of his reach and out the door, leaving him grabbing onto nothing but thin air.

Pansy avoided Diagon Alley for a week. Well, six days, if one wanted to be precise. She was intending to stay away for longer (‘longer’ in this case meaning ‘sometime between after she was declared clinically dead, and never’), but she found that she couldn’t. For one thing, she didn’t really want to. Diagon Alley was, after all, a shopping haven for all things magical and fabulous. For another, the permanent patient’s supply of beetle juice, and her personal supply of bananas, were both running dangerously low. For one more thing, although she felt uncomfortable beyond reason for admitting it to herself, she really, really missed Ron. And she felt as though kissing him (even if he initiated it), and then running away before either of them had had much chance to discuss it, was hardly admirable behaviour.

Taking a deep breath, Pansy opened the door to Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. It appeared as though nobody was in. Admittedly she shouldn’t have expected anybody to be in here, it being lunch hour and all, but Ron had always been there before. And anyway, why would everybody leave the shop without someone locking the door?

She spent several moments looking around, even deigning to pathetically bleat “Ron? Are you here?” once or twice. She was just about to give up and start the lugubrious journey back to work when she turned and came face-to-face with an overpowering smell of dung.

“Wahh!” she cried, holding her nose.

Ron, standing before her, his bright-pink work uniform, hands, and parts of his face covered in dirt, offered her a sheepish smile. “Yeah, sorry,” he said. “I’ve been gardening.”

“This really is the stuff of dightbares,” Pansy snuffled out, keeping her nostrils pinched firmly shut. “Add it doesd’t help that you sbell really bad as well.”

As soon as she said that, she bit her lip in embarrassment. The joke had come out automatically. She hadn’t had to think about it at all. It was a fact that seemed both troublesome and secretly pleasing. Normally the fact that she’d said the joke wouldn’t have worried her at all, but since she had last parted ways with him in a less-than-relaxed situation, she couldn’t help but be anxious.

Fortunately, she needn’t have worried. Ron, it seemed, didn’t have to think about their exchanges anymore either. “I was here thinking that you liked the way I look.” He smiled at her; a smile with meaning behind it that she couldn’t fail to catch. He was glad that she had come back.

And right now, so was she.

“Please,” she said to him now. “Yours truly is a face that odly a bother could love.”

“Hey!” He protested. “I’ll have you know that many people think I’m ridiculously handsome.”

“Like who?”

“Well…” Ron bit his lip in thought. “Um… well, my mum, for one.”

Pansy bit her lip now – this time, to keep from laughing. She removed her hand from her nose – an action she immediately regretted, as the past few minutes had done nothing whatsoever to lessen the strength of the odour.

“Berlin’s beard,” she muttered, pinching her nose again. “I really… I cad’t believe your brother lets you in the shop sbelling this bad.”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” He grinned at her. She smiled back, but when their eyes properly met their smiles immediately faded. Pansy wanted to look away from him, but found that she couldn’t. In their weeks of sudden yet surprisingly intimate friendship, she hadn’t seen what was now written in his eyes. What she saw, she couldn’t be entirely certain of, but it was fair to say that there was some nervousness there. And maybe some… hurt?

Oh Merlin, she thought. I’ve hurt him. I ran away like a stupid cowardly idiot and now he’s hurt. I’m such a horrible person sometimes. I don’t care what Father said…

Pansy stopped that train of thought immediately. If there was one thing she would never, ever allow herself to do, it was to pretend like she didn’t care about anything that Father said.

“Listen,” Ron now said to her. “I know you’ve been avoiding me. You haven’t been here in, like, a week—”

“Six days,” she immediately corrected. “Practically to the bidute. Or it would have beed, if I’d cobe about twedty-five bidutes later…” she trailed off at the look of slight exasperation on Ron’s face.

“But who’s coudting,” she mumbled.

Ron shook himself. “Erm, OK. Your weird obsession with accuracy aside, I’m glad you’ve come back. Because there’s something I wanted to ask you.”

“All right.” She wanted to make some kind of rebuttal about accuracy being a good thing, but now was probably not the right time.

“Well,” Ron continued. “I was wondering if maybe you… erm… you… and I, perhaps… well I say ‘perhaps’, but really I would have to be involved, wouldn’t I?... if we could… maybe…”

Pansy sighed. She wondered if she was this irritating when she was asking somebody to help her out. She probably was, and that realisation alone gave her some new-found respect for her interns.

“I have to say,” she addressed Ron now, “that this powerful stedch was wholly uddecessary. Your weeds would dot have stood a chadce agaidst this level of bravado.”

“Look, shut up. It’s not like you’re the bravest warrior in all the land,” he argued back, but Pansy saw, to her relief, that he was now smiling.

“OK, fine,” he continued. “I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me tonight?”

Pansy’s frown returned, along with a corresponding widening of the eyes. She had not expected any sort of proposal for a date. More than anything else, she thought that he would apologise, say that he had hit his head pretty badly a week – sorry, six days – ago, and that he wasn’t thinking clearly, he had made a mistake, he would certainly not do it again, and could they pretty please go back to the way things were. Had he said that Pansy would have responded with an enthusiastic “Oh yes please!” and then begged him to have a shower. But no. He had to throw her a curved Quaffle and propose dinner. Pansy was not sure if that was the greatest idea.

“I dod’t dow,” she answered Ron, after a moment’s silence that Ron was probably used to by now, her zoning out as often as she tended to do.

“Really?” Ron asked, a matching frown now gracing his features. “What don’t you know?”

“I dod’t dow if we cad…” Pansy started, then stopped. Surely, technically speaking, they were capable of doing anything? Aside from, maybe, backwards somersaults. She certainly couldn’t do one, but maybe he could? The subject of advanced gymnastics had not really come up in conversation before… Wait. No. Pansy stopped herself. She was trailing off again.

“It’s… I bead… it’s cobplicated,” she ended up saying. Lamely, she had to confess.

“’Complicated’?” Ron repeated, now staring at her as though she was bat-shit crazy. Pansy thought that was fair, considering how, really, she was a little bit crazy. “It’s not complicated at all. It’s simple.”

Pansy opened her mouth to argue, but after a moment of standing there looking like some bizarre fish hybrid, with a hand clamped over her nose and making her sound like she had a severe head cold, she closed her mouth most of the way again (she had to keep it slightly open so she could continue breathing). What the hell was she saying? He’s right. This wasn’t complicated at all. It was simple. It was obscenely simple.

She looked Ron up and down. “Will you shower first?”

Ron threw his hands up in frustration. “Oh Merlin, YES! OK?”

“Well,” Pansy said, trying not to grin, “that’s sobethig at least.”

~*~

Pansy’s first thought when she arrived at the restaurant (Italian, at her insistence) was that she was definitely not going to tell Ron that she had spent the last two hours in her room trying on every dress she owned, then fixing her hair and applying her make-up, then deciding that her hair and make-up were both rubbish and redoing them, then realising that she still wasn’t dressed and had to pick something random to wear because she was running late.

Wait, she thought. Is that one thought, or about five hundred?

Her second thought, upon seeing Ron sitting by the window, was that she had made the better decision regarding outfit. And hers hadn’t even been a decision.

And that thought, at least, was relatively rational. He was wearing what at first glance appeared to be the basis of the average clown costume, but upon closer scrutiny was a button-down cotton formal dress shirt of a calibre similar to what men generally wore in similar situations. Except that he had, for some reason, gone for a garment coloured the brightest shade of red that she had ever seen. Blood, indeed, was of a dull hue by comparison.

The red-and-white striped matching tie didn’t help matters, either.

“Really?” she greeted him, allowing the waiter to pull out her chair for her. “You take the most necessary shower in human history, change out of those pink robes, and put on something that makes you look like you’re in a barbershop quartet? It’s like going from bad to worse.”

Ron raised an amused eyebrow. To her dismay, he didn’t seem the least embarrassed. “I didn’t have anything else. And anyway, I’ve always felt that those singing blokes are well dapper.”

“Dapperness hasn’t been a turn-on since around 1950, you realise?” Neither of them noticed the waiter walking away, scratching her head in a manner that was as confused as it was unprofessional.

“Really?” Ron asked, a hand pressing into his chest in faux shock. “Why ever not? Does the monacle and bowtie not scream raw, primal sexuality anymore? I must be behind the times.”

“That’s assuming that you were in the times to begin with.”

At this point, both of them had to cease talking, their laughter enveloping all basic vocal functions. Pansy’s body shook with silent chuckles as she shook her napkin out and laid it across her lap.

“So,” Ron said, clearing his throat. “Where did the waiter go?”

Pansy blinked. “She was here a second ago, wasn’t she?”

~*~

Admittedly, Pansy hadn’t been on a date since … well, since before … not for a while, anyway. But even so, this was the most fun she believed she had ever had on a date. The awkwardness of being on a date, the tension, the constant worry about one’s appearance or manners, was completely absent. Instead there was a tirade of laughter (at one point to such a severe extent that Pansy snorted wine up her nose and was coughing and spluttering into her napkin for the next five minutes), a hearty consumption of delicious food, and a feeling of fulfilment that Pansy would say she hadn’t felt for the longest time, but she’d been lying to herself if she did say that. Because really, it was the feeling that she felt whenever she was in Ron’s company.

Why it hadn’t struck her before, in all the millions of times that she had thought about him lately, she had no idea. But that was what it was. Since they had first met during her pet-finding quest, he had presented this ability to make everything that upset her seem manageable. The job that, despite being enjoyable, presented a futility to her that was normally impossible to ignore, faded into the background when she was with him.

They exited the restaurant, the aftertaste of chocolate cake fresh in their mouths, grinning like a couple of idiots. They started walking towards the nearest Apparition point.

“Okay,” Ron said, rubbing at the sides of his face. “You know what? My jaw is actually kind of sore from laughing so much. So I’m going to rest it for a bit, and ask you something that I really want to know.”

Pansy raised an eyebrow. “All right, weak jaw.”

“Shut up, weak bladder.”

“You said you wouldn’t mention that!”

“I’m a Weasley. You should never believe me when I promise not to mention things. But listen. What I want to know is why you do what you do, at St. Mungo’s?”

Pansy frowned. It was not the first time he had asked that question. She supposed the more cautious side of her would wonder why he was asking, but, unusually for her, her more logical side prevailed, telling her that he was probably honestly curious and nothing more. She hesitated, but eventually came to the conclusion that the truth was not something that he was going to find disturbing, or strange, or pathetic, or anything else that she wouldn’t want him to think. He probably would think nothing of it, as would anybody else. But it was something she kept closely guarded – a secret, as it were.

But she trusted Ron, now. And if she was honest with herself, she kind of wanted him to know the truth. She wanted him to know something about herself that nobody else knew. And it was that that made her decide that it was all right to finally tell him.

“Okay,” she said. “Well, my father died, about a year after the war, from an irreversible dark curse. A bit like Dumbledore, but Father deteriorated a bit more severely than Dumbledore did.”

Glancing over at Ron, she could see that he was clearly shocked, which did not surprise her. Very few people knew of her father’s death. It had not been advertised to anybody except those who needed to know.

Ron, despite his surprise, said nothing. Pansy took that as a sign to continue: “He became quite sick eventually, so we moved him to the permanent ward in St. Mungo’s. I wasn’t working at the time, so I visited him every day, without fail, until he died.

“I knew it was inevitable that he would die, and that saddened me more than I thought I could be saddened. My father was … not perfect. But for all his faults, I loved him. More than I thought I did before he got sick.

“As a final gift to him, I dedicated myself to making his last few months the best he’d ever had. We laughed a lot together. We had a lot of fun. And I think it’s why I’m so good at coming up with funny things to say now. My father had a terrific sense of humour. Right before he died, he told me that he wouldn’t have traded those last few months with me for anything in the world. After he died, I decided that I wanted to do what I had done for him, for other people.

“And that’s what I did. I completed my Healer training, then did further training in the permanent ward. The Board of Healers were impressed with the ability I seemed to have to figure out what patients needed to enjoy as satisfactory an existence as possible, and as I continued to impress them, I moved quickly up the ranks, and now I’m one of the heads of the department.

“Actually, the first time I saw you? When I bought the Pygmy Puff? I was buying it for a patient of mine, named Maggie Maplethorpe. She was a Potioneer for one of those semi-illegal potion-mixing organisations that treated its employees horribly and didn’t grab the attention of the Aurors until very recently. She’s lived in the ward for two years now, and is clinically insane from over-exposure to poisonous potion fumes. She barely speaks, and the only time she ever smiles is when she’s near animals. We think that maybe she kept pets in her youth. So I thought that a pet would help her, and I bought the Pygmy Puff. She’s much happier now than I’ve ever seen her.

“I know my job is futile. Even with Maggie’s increased endorphins, she probably will not live to the end of this year. Her brain is too damaged to sustain her for much longer. But when I’m working, and I see her playing with that little pink ball, with those relaxed eyes and that sweet smile, I like to believe that maybe, somehow, I’ve made an important difference.”

Pansy realised that she was rambling, and stopped. Looking to her right, she saw that Ron had ceased walking, so she halted as well. He was now looking at her with an expression that was as peculiar to her, coming from him, as the expression of hurt he had seen earlier that day. It was awe.

“What?” she asked, slightly nervous.

Ron blinked a few times. The expression of awe largely vanished, but his eyes were still wide and surprised.

“Nothing,” he said, resuming walking. Pansy walked along with him in silence for a few seconds. But then he spoke again.

“It’s just…” he said, pausing to clear his throat. “It’s just… you… you really are amazing, aren’t you?”

Pansy shrugged. “Not really.”

She heard him stop again, but by the time she’d registered that he had already grabbed her hand, spun her around and pulled her toward him. In a rare show of tenderness, he was now cupping her face with his hand. Pansy’s breath caught in her throat.

“Yes, really,” Ron whispered, and before she could say, do, or even think anything beyond _his hand is on my face, and it’s probably covered with foundation now_ , he was kissing her.

When his lips made contact with hers, random thoughts started shooting in and out of her head. Thoughts such as “Oh Merlin, he’s doing this again”, and “I’m going to say something really stupid after this and bugger everything up again”, and “His technique could use some work…”

But when his hand slid from her cheek to the back of her head and he deepened the kiss, a far louder voice inside her head told all of the other thoughts to shut right the hell up. Her hands came to rest on his shoulders, and when she started kissing him back she felt an enormous weight she didn’t know she’d been holding being lifted from her shoulders, and now she was almost flying. When Ron abruptly broke the kiss several moments later, she was more than a little annoyed.

“What are you doing?” she asked, frowning at him.

“Sorry,” he said. He licked his lips, and the action made her shiver. She closed her eyes, trying to control her breathing. She could feel her thoughts taking on a decidedly primal flavour.

She felt his hand grab hers again, and opened her eyes.

“Huh?” she asked, stupidly.

“Sorry,” he said again, not sounding remotely apologetic, “but hearing your story, and kissing you, then watching you try to calm down… I just… I can’t not have you now.”

Pansy’s eyes widened in surprise, but she put up no resistance as Ron pulled her towards the apparition point.

~*~

They Apparated to the inside of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, which Pansy noted with amusement was quite spooky-looking in the dark when nothing was trying to entertain you. She only had about half a second to notice the atmosphere, since as soon as they could both definitely confirm that they had made it to their destination without splinching themselves, Ron’s lips were on hers again.

Pansy responded eagerly, flinging her arms around his shoulders and backing him towards the rear of the shop. When they reached the back door she pushed him against it, and he immediately let out a muffled noise of protest.

Pansy broke away, backing up several steps. “What is it?”

Ron shook his head. “Nothing, nothing. It’s just …” he raised his hand and rubbed the back of his head. “That really hurt. Are you always this aggressive?”

Pansy stared at him for several moments, before burying her face in her hands. “That … was one of the most pathetic things I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“What?” Ron looked somewhat offended. “It hurt!”

“I’m so terribly sorry,” Pansy said, her sarcasm obvious. “I promise that next time I’ll be gentle. Would you like us to stop? I can bandage you up, maybe give your hair a quick tousle before calling it a night?”

Ron’s response was something between a shout and a growl. He strode towards her, took her by the shoulders, turned her around and pushed her, hard, against the door.

“Ow!” she shrieked, her own hand coming up to the back of her head. “Son-of-a—”

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Ron said, sliding over to her and placing one hand flat on either side of the door, effectively trapping her there. Pansy would have replied, but he was kissing her again, and the hand that would have been feeling the back of her head for future bumps instead landed lazily on his shoulder somewhere.

With some effort, Ron managed to finally open the door, and Pansy saw a narrow hallway and flight of stairs, lit by a soft yellow light. It was cosy, and at any other time Pansy would have appreciated the décor. Right then, however, Ron was taking her hand and pulling her up the stairs, down another (somewhat wider) hallway, and through another door.

Pansy had to blink a few times when she entered, as the bedroom she was now in looked as though somebody had made an enormous vat of pumpkin juice and sprayed it everywhere. EVERYTHING, from the curtains, to the bed, to the 75 trillion or so posters on the wall, was orange. Not only that, but the posters all featured moving Quidditch players, who were flying or swinging Beater clubs or jostling each other in group photos, so the posters were like an orange haze.

“Wow. So I guess that Cannons shirt you wore to the doctor’s office was just the tip of the iceberg, huh?” she asked Ron, who was closing the door.

He glanced at the paraphernalia adorning his bedroom. “My most humble apologies. I left my suave and pretentious chocolate brown and cream wall, dark curtains and matching romantic fireplace room setting in the pocket of my other barbershop costume.”

“Pity.” Pansy regarded the bed with hesitation. “So how do I know when I sit on that thing that it isn’t going to light me on fire?”

“I do it every night.”

“You’ve had lifelong exposure.”

“Huh,” Ron stroked his chin in thought. “That must have been why my head caught fire the first time I used the pillow covers. And there I was thinking that Fred was practising his fire-casting spells on my hair.”

Pansy clamped her hands over her mouth to keep herself from laughing, but she was pretty sure her shaking body would have been a dead giveaway. At any rate, Ron was soon stepping towards her, prying her hands away. He kept a light hold on them after they fell to her sides.

“I like it when you laugh,” he said, his voice now softer, quieter, and somehow so intimate that Pansy felt a shiver go down her spine that had nothing to do with laughing. She would never, in a million years, have thought that Ron, or any of the Weasleys, could be sexy in any way. But in between his soft touches and lingering hands, and the contrasting fact that he didn’t seem remotely afraid of – for lack of a better word – manhandling her, he managed to be incredibly sexy.

“I don’t really seem to do much else when I’m with you,” she said, in a more breathless tone than what she was intending.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Ron disagreed. “You frown sometimes. And you scoff. And you raise one eyebrow – I’ve always wanted to be able to do that – and, let’s see, what else?” He paused for a moment in apparent thought. “Oh yeah, I know.”

“What is i—eek!” Pansy shrieked as Ron grabbed her by the waist and lifted her off the ground. He carried her across the room, to the bed, where he gracelessly dropped her. She landed softly on the orange quilt, and before she could get up and straighten herself or anything like that, a hand was on her shoulder, pushing her back down. She felt Ron crawling over her, and as he placed himself directly on top of her, his weight pressed her further into the bed. But it was not at all uncomfortable. If it had been somebody else she may have felt squashed, but being close to Ron in any way felt amazing. She wondered why they hadn’t done this sooner.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, looking down at her.

“Nothing, really,” she answered. “Just that this is nice.”

“Really?” So you haven’t started to combust from the colour of my quilt or anything?”

Pansy looked as well as she could at the quilt she was lying on. “It might take a while to heat up,” she suggested. “I’m pretty sure my retinas are already a bit crispy from the visual.”

“Maybe you should close your eyes then?” Ron suggested, and as Pansy opened her mouth to respond, he swooped down and kissed her again, and her eyes fluttered closed of their own accord. When she felt his hand pulling at the ties of her dress, her only response was to wrestle with his ridiculous tie.

Piece by piece they pulled each other’s clothes off, managing to both get under the covers in the process. By the time they had finally stopped undressing and he was on top of her again, she was more than ready.

“You sure about this?” he asked, looking at her with some concern.

Pansy rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Weasley. I might not be the fastest person in the world, but I think that if I wasn’t sure I’d have backed away long before now. I was very close to leaving during the sock debate.”

“’The sock debate’? Is that what we’re calling it? In case you were wondering, my feet are really cold right now.”

“Well, I apologise for your predicament, but I can’t do this with somebody who leaves their socks on. Maybe I just have a deep-veined hatred against socks, I don’t know. But I’m sure both you and your socks will be able to forgive me, given enough time and counselling.”

“Don’t be so sure about that. My socks are stubborn bastards.” Even as he spoke, he was sliding a hand between their bodies. She could feel his hand on her mound, then going lower, but he didn’t seem to be having much luck finding anything down there.

“Need a map?” she asked.

Ron pursed his lips in annoyance. “Look, shut up, all right? It’s been a while.”

“And don’t I know it? You had to stop twice while we were getting undressed just to calm down. I think most seventeen-year-olds could give you a run for your money.”

“Believe me, you’ll thank me for my control soon enough. Ahh!” His face lit up in triumph, and Pansy bit back a laugh. “Found it!”

“No you haven’t. I don’t feel any diff—ohh, my…” Pansy’s head fell back as Ron started stroking her clitoris. She could feel waves of pleasure emanating from where he touched her, all through her body, to the tips of her fingers and toes. It had definitely been way too long for her as well.

“I’m pretty sure I did find it, actually,” she heard Ron say. She swatted lazily at him, and he smiled and nuzzled against her neck.

“Actually,” he said, coming back up. “Do you mind if I go and get one of those Muggle felt-tips? I feel I should mark it or something, so I don’t lose it again.”

“That’s a brilliant idea,” Pansy answered sarcastically. “But those things don’t last on the skin for very long. If you like, next time I’ll charm it to be bright purple, or something. Save you the trouble of the hunt?”

“I would be much obliged,” he said. “I especially liked how you said ‘next time’, as though there’s definitely going to be a next time.”

“There might not be if you don’t get on with it,” Pansy told him sharply.

“Now who needs to calm down?” he asked her, but luckily for him he chose not to press the issue. His lips returned to her neck, and Pansy sighed in contentment. This was some of the most ridiculous love-making she had ever experienced, but she’d be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that it was also much more fun than anything she’d had before. Who knew that making love could be so light-hearted and enjoyable?

Ron stopped sucking at her neck, raising his head to look at her.

“You’re really pretty when you’re all flushed, you know,” he said, caressing her cheek before worming his hand under the covers again

“Aww,” Pansy answered. “Look who’s getting all sentimental. And there I was thinking that I was doomed to look forever like a pug in your eyes.”

Ron grinned at her. “Did I never mention to you that I think pugs are the cutest of all the dogs?”

“I think that’s simultaneously one of the nicest and one of the most insulting things that anybody’s ever said to me,” she said.

“And don’t you forget it.” As they spoke, she felt him batting at her inner thighs with his hand. It took her a moment or two to realise that he wanted her to spread her legs. Lazy git should spread them himself, she thought, but she did as he requested anyway. Then he found her sensitive nub of pleasure, much more quickly this time, and she sighed and closed her eyes.

She felt his lips on hers again, and as they kissed he aimed for her entrance. He pushed in with one quick, swift thrust, and as she started to raise her hips to meet him, he suddenly wrenched his lips away from hers and lifted his upper torso.

“You all right?” she asked, concerned. He actually looked somewhat frightened.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just … I can’t believe this is happening.”

Pansy was confused. They’d been laughing and having fun before. Why was he suddenly being so serious? “Why not?”

“Because,” he said, before clearing his throat. “Because you’re … you’re so incredible, Pansy. You dedicate your life to making other people happy, and as far as I’m concerned, you make me happier than I thought I could ever be.”

“Really?” Pansy asked, blushing at what she felt was undeserved praise. “But you’re the happiest person I know.”

“Mostly I am pretty happy, yeah,” he agreed. “But we lived through a war, Pans. I’ve seen things, and done things… and then there’s my brother… those things stay with you, whether you want them to or not. And I never thought I’d be able to let them fade to the background.

“But then you came along, and… I don’t know what it was, but we connected so well. And suddenly all of those things did fade, and whenever I’m with you they stay away. I don’t know why or how you have that power over me, but you do. I wish… or rather, I hope… that someday I’ll be able to make you feel as happy as you make me feel…”

Pansy lifted a hand up, brushing her fingertips against his hairline. He stopped talking and looked back at her, grinning nervously when he saw her soft smile. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close to her, feeling his skin pressing into hers in so many places, and knew that she was more content, right then, than ever before.

“Ron,” she said softly, her hands sliding down the side of his face, “you already do.”

She kissed him then, and this kiss was different than any of the others they’d shared that night. This time, it was as though they were both transmitting every wonderful feeling they had for each other in one simple gesture. Pansy’s hands raked through his shaggy hair, and she felt him thrust against her. A jolt of pleasure ran down her spine, and she pushed her hips up, encouraging him to do it again.

They pushed against each other, again, and again, and soon enough they had no choice but to stop their amazing kiss, or else they’d be unable to breathe, and that more than anything else would be a killer of the romance.

“I love you,” he whispered, breathlessly.

“I love you, too,” she replied, hugging him to her. They continued thrusting, feeling their pleasure rise, until eventually they climaxed together, in each other’s arms, for all intents and purposes acting as one.

~*~

Several hours later, Pansy opened her eyes, her face pressed against Ron’s horrifically orange quilt.

She quickly raised her head. She’d fallen asleep?

“Hey,” said a soft voice.

She turned to her left, and saw Ron sitting up, reading a book. He looked over at her, smiling.

“Hi,” she replied, smiling sheepishly. She wasn’t sure of what to say to him. Should she acknowledge what they had just done in some way? She wasn’t ashamed of it, obviously, but mentioning it seemed awkward.

“Do you normally fall asleep afterwards?” Ron asked, saving her the trouble of trying to think of something to say.

“Er … sometimes?” she said, cautiously.

Ron nodded thoughtfully. “Well, I can’t complain. You look lovely when you sleep. I was watching you for about an hour.”

Pansy blushed. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He leaned over, ran his fingers through her hair, and kissed her. She breathed out, letting herself fall into the kiss.

They broke apart, and Ron grinned at her.

“You also snore like a jackhammer.”

Pansy clicked her tongue, grabbed the nearest pillow and whacked him in the face.

**Author's Note:**

> Please review [here](http://community.livejournal.com/smutty_claus/149338.html?mode=reply).


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